Detroit's Mayoral Race Is 'The Most Important In 50 Years' And It's Already Turning Into A Disaster

A
worker removes trees and brush from front of a house during a
blight removal project in the Brightmoor neighborhood in Detroit,
Michigan July 16, 2013. If you want to tackle Detroit's thousands
of abandoned homes and trash-strewn and overgrown lots, there are
few better places to start than in Brightmoor in the northwestern
corner of the city.REUTERS/ Rebecca
Cook

Detroit has finally filed for bankruptcy, and some say things
couldn't get any worse.

They may want to take a look at how the mayor's race is shaping
up.

The first thing you need to know is that fundraising leader Mike
Duggan's bid was derailed after
a judge threw him off the ballot after he failed to meet
residency requirements. He must now run as a write-in.

The former CEO of Detroit Medical Center, Duggan has the defacto
backing of Quicken Loans CEO Dan Gilbert, the guy who's spending
more than $1 billion to revive downtown Detroit.

Duggan also has the support of at least one of the young
professionals we interviewed in our piece on people moving back
to Detroit. Jeff Winkler, a vice president at Morgan Stanley,
told us in an email:

Duggan is the type of change that Detroit needs. He has the
ability to transform the city and make it the Detroit that it can
be.

Write-in candidacies are never easy, and Duggan was given
less than a month to win votes for the August 6 primary to
replace incumbent Dave Bing, who is stepping down.

But this week, things got even stranger.

A barber named Mike Dugeon — who pronounces his name "Duggan" —
announced
he would wage a write-in campaign.

Dugeon turned in paperwork Thursday declaring his intent, adding
a last-minute potential spoiler to Duggan’s long-shot write-in
bid. Dugeon’s candidacy could throw a serious wrench into how
write-in votes cast for Duggan are counted, particularly those
that are misspelled.

I get a call from a... political camp saying this guy is
tied in and he's going to put his name in so as a reporter I go
over there and knock on the door, I ask him; he says no," LeDuff
said. "I explain what Duggan and Dugeon on the ballot means, he
thinks about it, he likes the idea, he does it, I follow, end of
story.

Napoleon’s projected $30-million deficit in fiscal year 2012-13
mounted while he carried a staggering 41 appointees on the
payroll making an average of $84,000 a year, and while the
sheriff insisted he could find only about $2 million in savings.

“You don’t spend money you don’t have,” Napoleon said, when asked
how he would balance the city’s budget. “That’s the simple
answer.”

Right. But he hasn’t met that standard as sheriff.

And on his tenure as police chief:

...it would be a challenge to describe his tenure as DPD chief
successful. Napoleon’s three years in the role ended with a
Department of Justice investigation, initiated by the Detroit
City Council. The department is still operating under a federal
consent decree, which has cost the city about $10 million to
date.

Winkler told us the race will define the city for generations:

I truly believe that the outcome of the mayoral race and city
council is the most important in the last 50 years. If Detroit is
going to reinvent itself it needs to start here.